Law and Policy on the Concept of Bullying at School

Dewey Cornell
Susan P. Limber

The nationwide effort to reduce bullying in U.S. schools

can be regarded as part of larger civil and human rights
movements that have provided children with many of the
rights afforded to adult citizens, including protection from
harm in the workplace. Many bullied children find that
their schools are hostile environments, but civil rights
protections against harassment apply only to children who
fall into protected classes, such as racial and ethnic minorities, students with disabilities, and victims of gender
harassment or religious discrimination. This article identifies the conceptual challenges that bullying poses for
legal and policy efforts, reviews judicial and legislative
efforts to reduce bullying, and makes some recommendations for school policy. Recognition that all children have
a right to public education would be one avenue for broadening protection against bullying to all children.
Keywords: bullying, harassment, childrens rights, school
safety

wo events in 1999 were turning points in the recognition of school bullying as an important societal
problem in the United States. The shooting at Columbine High School was the most notorious of a series of
school attacks that were widely viewed in the press as
actions by vengeful victims of bullying (Dinkes, Kemp, &
Baum, 2009; Fein et al., 2002). Equally important, but less
prominent in the national news, in the same year, the U.S.
Supreme Court (Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 1999) established that schools could be liable for
failure to stop student-to-student sexual harassment. This
far-reaching decision has supported nationwide lawsuits
concerning victims of bullying (Alley & Limber, 2009), as
well as a directive from the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights (hereafter Office for Civil
Rights) that certain forms of bullying must be addressed
as civil rights violations (U.S. Department of Education,
Office for Civil Rights, 2010). Since 1999, 49 of 50 states
have passed antibullying legislation (Federal Partners in
Bullying Prevention, 2014). This article examines law and
policy on the concept of bullying at school that stem from
these judicial and legislative developments.
The movement to protect children from bullying represents a historic step forward in childrens rights. In the
past century, laws and policies concerning child labor,
child protection, social welfare, adoption, divorce, and
criminal prosecution, among others, have advanced the
rights of children in the United States. The effort to prevent
bullying promises to extend to children a basic right to
safety already afforded to adults. This movement also
MayJune 2015 American Psychologist
2015 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/15/$12.00
Vol. 70, No. 4, 333343
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038558

University of Virginia
Clemson University

intersects with important civil and human rights concerns

for persons with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities,
sexual minorities, women, and others who constitute protected classes of individuals.
Despite more than a decade of judicial and legislative
activity, as well as a massive increase in scientific research
and the development of numerous prevention programs
(Bradshaw, 2015; Hymel & Swearer, 2015), law and policy
about bullying remain fragmented and inconsistent. The
purpose of this article is to critically examine conceptual
challenges in judicial and legislative efforts to address
bullying in schools. Because of space limitations, we concentrate on the core issue of how bullying is defined and
who should be protected. We begin with an analysis of
definitional challenges with bullying and explain how bullying is distinguished from other forms of peer aggression
and from the concept of harassment. We analyze some
important judicial decisions and actions by the U.S. Department of Education that illuminate the gap between a
civil rights approach to harassment and the broader realm
of bullying, and note the persistence of these problems in
state legislation. We conclude that current legal and policy
approaches, strongly rooted in laws regarding harassment
and discrimination, do not provide adequate protection for
all bullied students and that a more comprehensive approach that recognizes the right to education for all children
is needed.

Conceptual Challenges
Bullying is such a broad and omnibus concept that there is
potential for confusion and controversy over its meaning,
severity, and relation with other constructs. The conventional definition of bullying includes three characteristics:
(1) intentional aggression, (2) a power imbalance between
aggressor and victim, and (3) repetition of the aggressive
Editors note. This article is one of six in the School Bullying and
Victimization special issue of the American Psychologist (MayJune
2015). Susan M. Swearer and Shelley Hymel provided the scholarly lead
for the special issue.
Authors note. Dewey Cornell, Curry School of Education, University of
Virginia; Susan P. Limber, Institute on Family & Neighborhood Life,
Clemson University.
We thank Richard Bonnie, David Osher, Jane Riese, Marlene Snyder, Nan Stein, and Craig Wood for their reviews of earlier versions of this
article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Dewey Cornell, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, 417
Emmet Street South, P.O. Box 400267, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4267.
E-mail: dcornell@virginia.edu

333

Dewey
Cornell

behavior (Olweus, 2013; Solberg & Olweus, 2003). These

three characteristics were recognized by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in its uniform definition of
bullying (Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin, 2014). Each of these criteria poses challenges for law
and policy.
The first criterion of intentional aggression is broadly
inclusive and means that bullying can be physical, verbal,
or social in nature (Gladden et al., 2014). As a result,
bullying can overlap with many other proscribed behaviors
such as criminal assault, extortion, hate crimes, and sexual
harassment. In its milder forms, bullying can be difficult to
distinguish from ordinary teasing, horseplay, or conflict.
With regard to social or relational bullying, it may be hard
to draw the line between childrens friendship squabbles
and painful social ostracism.
The second criterion, the requirement for a power
imbalance between aggressor and victim, is at the core of
the concept of bullying and distinguishes it from other
forms of peer aggression. However, a power imbalance is
difficult to assess. Although judgments about physical size
and strength are feasible in cases of physical bullying,
bullying is most often verbal or social and requires a
determination of a power differential that requires an assessment of peer status, self-confidence, or cognitive capability (Cornell & Cole, 2011; Olweus, 2013). In some
contexts, the victim lacks power for less obvious reasons,
such as because of minority sexual orientation, disability,
or membership in a particular racial or ethnic group (Greif
& Furlong, 2006). A further complication is that interpersonal power is not a static quality because it can vary across
situations and circumstances. A person surrounded by
friends gains temporary power over an adversary. An anonymous individual posting to a website has power to make
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hurtful remarks that may not have been possible in a

face-to-face situation.
Although there is widespread agreement among scholars that bullying is defined by the dominance of an aggressor over a victim, research has found that students often
disregard or overlook power imbalance in their reports of
bullying (Cornell & Huang, 2014; Green, Felix, Sharkey,
Furlong, & Kras, 2013; Ybarra, Espelage, & Mitchell,
2014). Despite hundreds of studies using various survey
methods, a satisfactory approach to assess the power imbalance criterion has yet to be identified, posing a challenge
to efforts to measure bullying prevalence and the effectiveness of prevention efforts (Cornell & Cole, 2011; Greif &
Furlong, 2006).
Although the definition of bullying conventionally
requires a power imbalance, sexual harassment and other
acts of discrimination (as discussed below) can occur in the
absence of a clear power difference. Furthermore, there is
no requirement for a power imbalance in criminal acts that
occur in the context of bullying. For example, a physical
assault is an assault even if the target was not obviously
smaller or weaker. The question of a power differential
might be regarded as superfluous in such cases when harm
to the victim is obvious. We return to this point in our
analysis of laws that define bullying.
Despite the challenges in identifying it, a power differential is often important in differentiating bullying from
other aggressive behavior among children and youth. From
a societal and moral perspective, the youth who inflicts
harm on a comparatively weaker victim may be considered
more blameworthy and deserving of consequences. There
may be greater concern about both the impact of bullying
on the victim (Ybarra et al., 2014) and the developmental
trajectory of the youth who bullies others (Ttofi, Farrington, Lsel, & Loeber, 2011).
Research has confirmed that the impact of bullying on
victims is often greater than that of other forms of peer
aggression or victimization (Felix, Sharkey, Green, Furlong, & Tanigawa, 2011; Turner, Finkelhor, Shattuck,
Hamby, & Mitchell, 2014; Ybarra et al., 2014). For example, Felix and colleagues (2011) found that among students
in Grades 5 to 12, those who experienced bullying reported
less life satisfaction, school connectedness, and hope compared with peers who experienced peer victimization that
was not bullying or those who reported no victimization. In
a nationally representative sample of children and youth
aged 6 to 17 years, Turner et al. (2014) found that power
imbalance independently increased the traumatic impact of
peer victimization. These findings are especially important
because of the long-term effects of peer victimization in
school (McDougall & Vaillancourt, 2015).
Furthermore, school efforts to address bullying may
require somewhat different strategies for intervention and
prevention than for other forms of peer aggression. For
example, efforts by school staff to address a students
persistent humiliation of a classmate with developmental
delay should be different from efforts to end a fight or an
aggressive verbal exchange between students of equal status. As a result, we conclude that the power imbalance
MayJune 2015 American Psychologist

be readily applied and understood. The complications associated with the definition of bullying have led some to
recommend that it would be preferable to focus more
generally on all forms of peer victimization regardless of
power differential or repetition (Finkelhor, Turner, &
Hamby, 2012). However, the moral urgency to stop bullying is based on the plight of a victim who is overpowered
and subjected to repeated humiliation, and there is evidence
that victims of bullying experience more serious adjustment problems than victims of other forms of peer aggression (Juvonen & Graham, 2014; Ybarra et al., 2014). Moreover, to the extent that research indicates that bullying is a
more pernicious and complex form of aggressive behavior,
then specific intervention efforts may be needed (Ttofi et
al., 2011). Our proposed response to this dilemma follows
an analysis of the closely related concept of harassment.

Civil Rights Laws and Bullying

Susan P.
Limber

should be retained both as an area of scientific investigation

and as a critical issue in assessing individual cases of
student aggression. The most significant problem from a
legal and policy perspective, however, is that the power
imbalance criterion is often omitted from definitions of
bullying in the law, and is not an explicit component of
legal definitions of harassment, as reviewed below.
The third criterion for bullying is that it is a repetitive
behavior. On one hand, if repetition is viewed as a necessary criterion for intervention, this might complicate enforcement of antibullying rules, because observers have the
added burden of detecting multiple incidents of abusive
behavior before they can conclude that bullying has occurred. On the other hand, recognition of a repetitive pattern to bullying may be helpful in ruling out less serious
behaviors (Solberg & Olweus, 2003). Most definitions recognize that a single incident can be sufficiently harmful or
likely to be repeated that it can be regarded as bullying
(Gladden et al., 2014; Olweus, 2013).
More recently, cyberbullying has emerged as a novel
and especially noxious way to engage in bullying. Through
the use of digital communication (e.g., web postings, text
messages, tweets), the perpetrator of bullying can exercise
great power in creating public humiliation on a continuous
basis. Although there are some unique and challenging
aspects to cyberbullying (Kowalski, Limber, & Agatston,
2012), most authorities recognize that cyberbullying is a
modality for engaging in verbal and social bullying, subject
to the same definitional criteria, rather than a qualitatively
different behavior (Gladden et al., 2014; Olweus, 2013;
Smith et al., 2002).
In summary, there are definitional challenges with the
concept of bullying that pose a dilemma for policymakers.
Laws concerning bullying must rest on a definition that can
MayJune 2015 American Psychologist

The term harassment is often used interchangeably with

bullying, but it has an established history in civil rights law
and policy that precedes the fledgling laws and developing
policies concerning bullying. Civil rights laws in the
United States are the culmination of many different advocacy movements and years of struggle to win protections
for specific classes of individuals who have been identified
as vulnerable to discrimination. Title VI of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color,
or national origin, whereas Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis
of sex. Both Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 2004
prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability. Of particular relevance to educators is that these laws protect
students from discriminatory actions that deprive them of
their right to free appropriate public education (FAPE), a
concept articulated in the 1975 Education of All Handicapped Children Act (also known as Public Law 94 142),
and revised in the 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Since their inception, these laws have
been generally interpreted to mean that teachers, administrators, and other school personnel who are employed in
public schools receiving federal funds must not engage in
discriminatory practices against their students. These laws
clearly protect students from discriminatory treatment by
adults at school, but there was substantial disagreement
among the federal courts regarding their application to
student-on-student harassment (Stein, 1999).
In 1999, the Supreme Court decision in Davis v.
Monroe County Board of Education (1999) ruled that
school authorities could be held liable under Title IX for
damages in a case involving student-on-student harassment. Although the case made no direct reference to bullying, Davis v. Monroe has emerged as a landmark case
with broad implications for bullying. Specifically, the case
involved a fifth-grade girl who was repeatedly harassed by
a male classmate who made sexually suggestive statements
and gestures, and touched her inappropriately. During
months of harassment, the girl was distressed, her grades
335

declined, and she wrote a suicide note. Frustrated by the

schools lack of responsiveness, the parents went to the
police and pressed charges. The boy pled guilty to sexual
battery.
The family sued school authorities on the basis of the
Title IX provision that no person shall, on the basis of sex,
be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of,
or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance (20
U.S.C. 1681[a]). The lower courts sided with the school
officials and the family appealed; after 6 years, the case
reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Courts 5 4
decision was a monumental shift in the legal obligations of
schools for student behavior. For the first time, the Supreme Court recognized that sexual harassment of one
student by another student could constitute a discriminatory
act under Title IX. This decision opened the door for more
cases arguing that schools should take action to stop harassment. In its decision, the Supreme Court identified four
conditions that must be met in order for a school to be held
liable. First, the student must be victimized because of
membership in a protected category. Students who are not
in a protected category, or whose harassment is not based
on their membership in that protected category, are not
included. For example, if a student from a racial minority
group is teased for being overweight, the student would not
be included in the scope of civil rights violations because
obesity is not a protected category and the teasing was not
directed at his or her minority status.
A second condition is that the harassment at school
must be severe. Ordinary teasing, name-calling, and
rough play among students are not sufficient unless the
behavior is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it denies its victims the equal access to education that Title IX is designed to protect (p. 21). The
court recognized that mildly aggressive behavior is commonplace among students and did not require that
schools be held to the same standards expected for adults
in the workplace. Third, the court decided that school
authorities must be aware of the harassment, and are not
liable for harassment that they did not know about.
Fourth, schools are liable only if they are deliberately
indifferent to the harassment. Schools are not required
to prevent or stop harassment, but only to make a reasonable effort to intervene when they become aware of
it. Under the scope of this decision, schools do not have
to be successful in their efforts and there is no standard
of practice specified for schools and no specific requirement that they maintain a school environment that is
reasonably free from harassment.
Although the Davis v. Monroe decision can be
regarded as a great step forward for childrens rights in
school, it fell short of extending to students the protections from harassment afforded to adults in the workplace (Graves, 2008). Both the third and fourth conditions represent a significant difference from standards
commonly applied in many adult workplace settings. In
the adult workplace, employers may be liable for sexual
harassment by coworkers that they should have known
336

about, even if they were unaware of it. Furthermore,

employers are expected to be successful in their efforts
to remedy the harassment and restore a harassment-free
workplace (Schneider, Pryor, & Fitzgerald, 2010).
Subsequent cases illustrate how courts have applied
the standards of the Davis v. Monroe decision to bullying. In Shore Regional High School Board of Education
v. P.S. Forty-one (2004), the Third Circuit held that the
school districts failure to stop bullying can constitute a
denial of a students right to FAPE under IDEA, 20
U.S.C. 1400 1487. In this case, a boy had been verbally and physically bullied because of his perceived girlish appearance and was called names such as gay and
faggot. The boy was classified as eligible for special
education services because of emotional disturbance that
was attributed to being bullied. After the boy attempted
suicide in the eighth grade, his parents were unwilling to
send him to the local high school, where he would be
exposed to the same students who had bullied him in
elementary and middle school. Although school authorities
initially denied the boys transfer, the parents argued successfully to the court that he should be permitted to attend
a different high school.
In a highly publicized case that prompted the Connecticut legislature to pass antibullying legislation, a 12year-old boy died by suicide after years of physical and
verbal bullying in middle school (Connecticut Commission
on Children, n.d.). In this case, Scruggs v. Meriden Board
of Education (2005), the plaintiff successfully argued that
the boy was bullied because of his learning disability, and
that the school failed to follow appropriate special education procedures, did not train its staff adequately, and did
not have appropriate antibullying and harassment policies.
It is difficult to assess how frequently school systems are sued for failure to protect students from bullying, because most cases are settled without readily available records. However, in an analysis of 166 federal and
state court decisions that specifically involved bullying
at school, Holben and Zirkel (2014) found a dramatic
increase in litigation since the early 1990s, typically
based on Title IX or Fourteenth Amendment (substantive due process and equal protection) claims. The study
found that the overwhelming number of claims and
rulings favored defendants (schools) over plaintiffs (parents), which seemed attributable to two factors, the
courts traditional tendency (a) to provide ample latitude to public school authorities (Holben & Zirkel,
2014, p. 324), and (b) to recognize state immunities to
tort liability (Holben & Zirkel, 2014). However, cases
reaching the level of a court decision are likely skewed
because school authorities with weaker defenses are
more likely to reach a settlement. The emergence of
clearer and stricter educational standards for schools to
protect students from bullying is likely to favor more
successful plaintiff cases. At the same time, successful
plaintiff cases will send a strong message to school
authorities and prompt widespread institutional change.
MayJune 2015 American Psychologist

Federal Guidance on Bullying

and Harassment
Educational standards regarding bullying are emerging
most clearly through a series of Dear Colleague letters
from offices of the U.S. Department of Education to school
authorities. In 2010, the Office for Civil Rights (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2010) sent
a Dear Colleague letter to schools across the nation to
provide guidance on dealing with bullying that rises to the
level of a civil rights violation. Although the policy language and specific standards of the letter have been variously interpreted and widely debated (Marcus, 2011), at its
core, the Office for Civil Rights emphasized that school
administrators should not fail to recognize that some forms
of bullying constitute discriminatory harassment under federal law. As the Dear Colleague letter advised, bullying of
an individual based on race, color, national origin, sex, or
disability can be a civil rights violation if it is sufficiently
severe, pervasive, or persistent that it interferes with a
students ability to benefit from the schools services, activities, or opportunities (U.S. Department of Education,
Office for Civil Rights, 2010).
Furthermore, when a student who is being bullied is
also identified as a victim of a federal civil rights violation,
the school has more than an obligation to stop the violation.
The Office for Civil Rights indicated that schools must
eliminate any hostile environment and its effects as well
as take steps to prevent the harassment from recurring
(U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights,
2010, pp. 23). These obligations imply a broader and
sustained effort to influence student behavior and improve
the school climate beyond simply disciplining the culpable
student. More generally, the Office for Civil Rights encouraged schools to conduct staff training on the schools civil
rights obligations, to have clear policies and procedures in
place, and to provide some form of orientation to students
and families that would help them recognize and seek help
for harassment. These recommended standards go well
beyond the conditions for liability articulated in Davis v.
Monroe.
In 2011, another Office for Civil Rights Dear Colleague letter advised that the Title IX protection against
gender-based harassment would include students harassed
on the basis of their perceived sexual orientation. This was
an important extension of protection because harassment
based on sexual orientation is so pervasive and sexual
minority students report extraordinarily high levels of bullying (OMalley Olsen, Kann, Vivolo-Kantor, Kinchen, &
McManus, 2014). In 2013, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services issued guidance to school authorities emphasizing
their obligation to prevent the bullying of students with
disabilities, stating, whether or not the bullying is related
to the students disability, any bullying of a student with a
disability that results in the student not receiving meaningful educational benefit constitutes a denial of FAPE under
the IDEA that must be remedied (U.S. Department of
Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative
MayJune 2015 American Psychologist

Services, 2013, p. 2). In response to ever-increasing numbers of complaints concerning the bullying of students with
disabilities and the effects of that bullying on their education (p. 1), the Office for Civil Rights issued a follow-up
letter to school personnel 1 year later (Lhamon, 2014) to
reiterate that the bullying of a student with a disability can
result in a denial of FAPE, highlight schools obligations to
address behavior that may constitute disability-based harassment, and explain schools responsibilities to remedy
any denial of FAPE.
Although the federal law protects the rights of students with disabilities (subsequently supported in a 2014
federal district court decision in T.K. v New York City
Department of Education), the Office of Special Education
and Rehabilitative Services authorities also observed,
Bullying of any student simply cannot be tolerated in our schools.
A school where children dont feel safe is a school where children
struggle to learn. Every student deserves to thrive in a safe school
and classroom free from bullying. (Yudin, 2013, p. 1)

The observation that all students should be protected

from bullying may seem obvious, but it is not recognized in
federal law.
A key problem with the use of civil rights law to
prevent bullying is that there are bullied students who do
not fall into one of the protected groups (Alley & Limber,
2009; Cascardi, Brown, Iannarone, & Cardona, 2014; General Accounting Office, 2012). Moreover, some students
may be members of a protected group, but bullying often
targets multiple characteristics (Youre fat and stupid)
that do not narrowly focus on protected characteristics such
as race or religion. The application of civil rights laws
regarding harassment to cases of bullying, however beneficial to so many students, creates gaps and ambiguities that
do not protect all other bullied students (General Accounting Office, 2012). Although students with disabilities have
an explicit right to a FAPE mandated by IDEA, students
without disabilities are not included under this legislation.
A natural question is why students without disabilities do
not have a comparable right to FAPE? If all students had a
right to public education, then school bullying of any
student, regardless of disability status or membership in
any protected class, could represent a violation of that
students rights. This recognition would provide a civil
rights protection to all students who are bullied with sufficient severity that it denies their right to public educationif such a right existed.
A central limitation to national efforts to prevent bullying is that there is no federal fundamental right to public
education (San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 1973), which has historically been the domain of
state and local governments. Arguably, the goal of No
Child Left Behind Act (2001) to provide all children with
significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education
represents an inclusive standard that could be applied to all
students, and Congress could establish a private right of
action for students whose education is not adequate
(Boyce, 2012). A national right to education would be
consistent with the United Nations Convention on the
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Rights of the Child, which, under international law, gives

children the right to education (Blanchfield, 2009; United
Nations General Assembly, 1989). Notably, the United
States and Somalia are the only two of 193 nations that
have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(Blanchfield, 2009).
Many states, in various ways, recognize the rights of
students to a public education free from discrimination
(General Accounting Office, 2012). The General Accounting Office (2012) has called for an assessment of state civil
rights laws in order to identify the full extent of legal
protection available to students who are subject to bullying.
For example, in New Jersey, the state Supreme Court cited
its antidiscrimination law that provides protections beyond
those afforded by Title IX. The court unanimously concluded, Students in the classroom are entitled to no less
protection from unlawful discrimination and harassment
than their adult counterparts in the workplace. L. W. v.
Toms River Regional Schools Board of Education, 2007).
The court further opined that schools should be required to
implement effective preventive and remedial measures to
curb severe or pervasive discriminatory mistreatment
(L. W. v. Toms River Regional Schools Board of Education,
2007). The New Jersey antidiscrimination law merits emulation.

State Laws on Bullying

Since 1999, legislative activity on bullying in schools has
been remarkably active. Between 1990 and 2010, more
than 120 bills were enacted by state legislatures that either
introduced or amended education or criminal justice statutes addressing bullying (U.S. Department of Education,
2011). Currently, all but one state has passed a law that
directs school districts or individual schools to develop
policies to address bullying. Before examining the definitions of bullying used in these statutes and some of the
challenges these definitions pose, we provide a brief overview of their provisions.
Key Provisions in State Anti-Bullying Laws
Although state laws vary widely with regard to the types of
provisions that must be included in school policies (Alley
& Limber, 2009; U.S. Department of Education, 2011),
some of the most common provisions include investigation
and reporting of bullying, disciplinary actions for students
involved in bullying, training of staff, and prevention efforts.
Reporting incidents of bullying. Many state
laws emphasize investigation and reporting of bullying
incidents. More than one third of the state laws explicitly
require or encourage school staff to report known incidents
of bullying, and approximately two thirds require or encourage school districts to create procedures for investigating bullying incidents. Although most states give districts
considerable flexibility in their procedures, some have
taken a more prescriptive approach. For example, in the
2010 amendments to its prior bullying law, New Jersey
legislators (N.J.S.A. 18A:3713) laid out detailed requirements regarding the investigation, documentation, and re338

view of each incident of bullying. Although investigation

of bullying incidents is critical, there is concern that some
requirements impose an excessive burden on school employees without adding substantial protection to bullied
students and their families (Hu, 2011; Rice, 2011). Moreover, few states provide funding to support their new
mandates, which limits the potential for successful implementation.
Disciplinary policies. Three quarters of the
states in the United States require or encourage school
systems to discipline students who bully, but there are
broad differences in what kinds of disciplinary consequences are considered appropriate (Sacco, Silbaugh,
Corredor, Casey, & Dohert, 2012). Most state laws include
general language about the need for consequences, disciplinary action, or remedial action, and several explicitly recognize that disciplinary actions should be age-appropriate (e.g., Arkansas, Georgia, and Missouri), but a
handful authorize specific harsh punitive consequences,
including suspension, expulsion, and transfer to alternative
school settings (Alley & Limber, 2009; Sacco et al., 2012).
Especially troubling are the public calls for zero tolerance for bullying (Education Department Hosts, 2012)
despite widespread criticism that zero tolerance is a failed
disciplinary policy (Morgan, Salomen, Plotkin, & Cohen,
2014). According to the American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force (2008), zero tolerance
policies mandate a severe punishment that is applied to all
violations regardless of the circumstances. To some educators, zero tolerance simply means that a certain form of
misbehavior will not be ignored; however, the practice of
zero tolerance in schools typically includes a specified
punishment, typically long-term suspension or expulsion
regardless of the seriousness of the infraction, or whether it
was intentional or unintentional. It is the automatic and
severe nature of the punishment that has distinguished zero
tolerance from other forms of discipline and has raised
concern (Cornell, 2006; Morgan et al., 2014). Critics have
denounced zero-tolerance policies as unsupported by scientific evidence (American Psychological Association Zero
Tolerance Task Force, 2008; Morgan et al., 2014). The use
of automatic school suspension has been rejected because it
is unnecessarily punitive, fails to address the needs of
students who bully, and has a chilling effect on reporting
by children and adults (Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention, n.d.; Limber, 2010). In light of reports that bullying is widespread in the general school population, the
potential negative consequences of applying zero tolerance
to bullying are considerable.
Prevention and support services. More
promising than a focus on punishment are provisions in
state laws that encourage preventive approaches to bullying, as well as counseling or other support services to
students involved in bullying. Approximately half of states
currently require or encourage school districts to provide
training for school personnel on bullying prevention, and
most require or encourage the implementation of bullying
prevention, education, or awareness programs for students
(Sacco et al., 2012; U.S. Department of Education, 2011).
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American Psychologist

However, only one third of state laws guide districts to

include in their policies the provision of counseling or other
support services for bullied students, students who bully, or
(in a few states) witnesses to bullying (Sacco et al., 2012).
A critical need for schools is guidance on effective
prevention and intervention services. Virginia legislation,
in 2012, directed a state agency to provide training for
Virginia public school personnel . . . on evidence-based
antibullying tactics . . . ( 9.1184). In an era of limited
resources, it is especially important for schools to make
good decisions in their choice of programs and services.
School authorities are inundated with programs and services (e.g., motivational speakers, inspirational videos,
guidebooks, and curricula) that purport to reduce bullying
but which lack scientific evidence of their effectiveness.
There is an unmet need to bridge the gap between popular
programs that are widely used in schools and scientific
research that could confirm their effectiveness, identify
ways to improve them, or suggest more promising alternatives. There is a large body of research on the effectiveness
of school-based programs to reduce student aggression and
disruptive behavior. A meta-analysis of 249 controlled
studies found overall positive effects for a wide variety of
school-based programs serving both the general school
population (universal programs) and students identified for
treatment because of conduct problems or minor classroom
disruptiveness (selected/indicated programs; Wilson &
Lipsey, 2007). Although not specifically focused on bullying, these findings are useful support for counseling efforts
with aggressive youth who may engage in bullying. A more
specific body of literature examines the impact of schoolwide programs to reduce bullying (see Bradshaw & Ttofi,
2015).
Statutory Definitions of Bullying
There is a distinct gap between state legislative definitions
of bullying and the criteria agreed upon by scholars (Alley
& Limber, 2009; Gladden et al., 2014). Most states define
bullying in terms of its intent to harm and severity of
impact, but only four states include a power imbalance in
their criteria and only eight define bullying as a repetitive
behavior (Sacco et al., 2012). Perhaps the statute that is
closest to the scholarly understanding of bullying is found
in Virginia law (Va. Code Ann. 22.1276.01):
Bullying means any aggressive and unwanted behavior that is intended to harm, intimidate, or humiliate the
victim; involves a real or perceived power imbalance between the aggressor or aggressors and victim; and is repeated over time or causes severe emotional trauma. Bullying includes cyberbullying. Bullying does not include
ordinary teasing, horseplay, argument, or peer conflict.
In contrast, many statutory definitions tend to blur
distinctions between the terms bullying and harassment
(Alley & Limber, 2009; Cascardi et al., 2014; Limber &
Small, 2003; Sacco et al., 2012; U.S. Department of Education, 2011). In its review of state bullying laws, the U.S.
Department of Education (2011) found that legislative
language used in crafting bullying laws often borrows
directly from harassment statues, which has led to a conMayJune 2015

American Psychologist

flation of the terms bullying and harassment, despite their

important legal distinctions (p. 17). Indeed, Cascardi and
colleagues (2014) found that 22 states use the terms harassment, intimidation, and bullying interchangeably, 14
restrict their definitions to bullying, two restrict their definitions to harassment, and eight include the terms harassment and bullying, but define them differently. Even the
Office for Civil Rights, in its 2014 Dear Colleague letter on
bullying, acknowledges that the terms bullying and harassment are used interchangeably (U.S. Department of
Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014, p. 1).
Challenges of conflating harassment and
bullying in state laws. Harassment, unlike bullying, is a behavior that has been long addressed in state and
federal law. Under state law, harassment typically is characterized as unwanted behavior that demeans, threatens, or
offends another and results in a hostile environment for the
victim. As previously discussed, under federal law, it is a
violation of civil rights to engage in harassment on the
basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or disability. As
noted by the U.S. Department of Education (2011, p. 17),
discriminatory harassment is distinguishable from more
general forms of bullying in that it must be motivated by
characteristics of the targeted victim. It is generally viewed
as a subset of more broadly defined bullying behavior.
Although discriminatory harassment can be regarded
as a subset of bullying behavior because it only includes
victims who fall into certain protected categories, harassment does not explicitly require a power imbalance, which
clouds its relation with bullying. In principle, harassment
could occur in the absence of a power imbalance, which
would make some cases of harassment a form of harmful
aggression that is not bullying. However, it could be argued
that harassment under civil rights law implies the existence
of a power imbalance in the notion that certain groups
(defined by gender, race, religion, national origin, or disability status) must be protected. In this way harassment
might still be regarded as a form of bullying, but one in
which the power imbalance is presumed rather than determined. This is not a satisfactory solution because it
stretches the concept of power imbalance in a circular
direction, so it seems necessary to recognize that harassment does not neatly fit into a broader category of bullying.
Recognizing that bullying may be more likely among
particular groups of individuals, and drawing, in part, on
language in harassment laws, about one third of the state
bullying laws provide a list of characteristics (such as
gender, race, national origin, religion, disability, and sexual
orientation) that can characterize victims of bullying. The
U.S. Department of Education (2011, p. 27) observed that
enumeration can be used in bullying legislation to limit
the legal definition of bullying to acts that are motivated by
characteristics, or it can be used more symbolically to
communicate that discrimination against certain groups
will not be tolerated. Debate has ensued over the wisdom
of enumerating protected groups or characteristics in bullying laws. Proponents argue that identification of specific
groups sends a clear message to school personnel about the
need to protect those students who are most vulnerable to
339

bullying (U.S. Department of Education, 2011), and

some evidence suggests that antibullying policies that
enumerate groups of protected youth may be associated
with fewer suicide attempts among lesbian and gay
youth (Hatzenbuehler & Keyes, 2013). A more inclusive
approach is to enumerate the groups deemed most at risk
for bullying, but to explicitly recognize in the law that
any form of bullying against any student is prohibited.
At least six states have specified that schools must offer
all students the same protection against bullying without
regard to the students legal status or membership in a
protected class (Sacco et al., 2012).
In state law, as in federal law, there is an irreconcilable conceptual problem undermining efforts to use civil
rights laws to protect victims of bullying: Schools are
increasingly facing the complex task of sorting out which
of the federal and state antidiscrimination laws apply to a
student who is being bullied, and accordingly have different legal obligations in different situations (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2014). Consider
that a student may be bullied simultaneously in different
ways by different students, and that the schools obligations may depend on the students gender, race, religion,
national origin, and disability status. A more straightforward and inclusive path is to protect all students from peer
aggression that threatens their right to education in an
environment conducive to learning. Just as no student
should be victimized because of gender, race, religion,
national origin, or disability status, no student should remain unprotected because the aggression fails to meet one
of those criteria. A child bullied for diminutive height or
excessive weight is no less deserving of protection. The
critical issue should be whether a student is being harmed,
and whether that harm is injurious to the students health
and well-being. In an adult workplace, the standard would
be no less (Schneider et al., 2010).
Challenges of conflating bullying with
other peer aggression in state law. There is a
tendency in state laws to eschew the academic definition of
bullying (particularly its focus on power imbalance) in
favor of a broader and more inclusive definition of student
aggression. The emphasis in most state laws is on the
harmful effects of bullying rather than whether the aggressor has dominance or power over the victim. On one hand,
this seems to be a reasonable course of action because of
the complexities of identifying a power imbalance that
could occur in social or psychological domains and the
importance of addressing all forms of peer aggression at
school. When a student is being harmed, the question of
whether a power imbalance is present is secondary to the
need for intervention to stop the harm and prevent its
recurrence.
On the other hand, this approach not only ignores
important differences between bullying and student aggression with respect to the harms that they cause, but it also
fails to recognize that the efforts needed to report, investigate, address, and prevent bullying at school (all of which
are key provisions of state antibullying laws) are distinct in
some important ways from efforts to address other forms of
340

peer aggression (Cascardi et al., 2014). For example, in

recognition of the reluctance of bullied children and youth
to report their victimization to school authorities (Luxenberg, Limber, & Olweus, 2014; Robers, Kemp, Truman, &
Snyder, 2013), experts in bullying prevention have emphasized the importance of increasing adult supervision at
school (Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention, 2014;
Ttofi & Farrington, 2011), instituting strategies such as safe
reporting procedures to increase students comfort with
reporting bullying that they experience or witness, and
careful and expedient investigation of all reports. Similarly,
many states require or encourage school staff to report
bullying and most highlight the need to develop procedures
for investigation of incidents of bullying. Although other
forms of aggressive or violent behavior are also likely
underreported in schools, and such behaviors typically warrant action on the part of school personnel, the power
differential in instances of bullying make it particularly
likely that victims will suffer silently, and therefore require
particularly sensitive reporting and investigation procedures.
Not only are there differences in the reporting and
investigation of instances of bullying versus other aggressive or violent behaviors at school, there are also distinct
recommended interventions with bullied and bullying
youth. For example, although peer mediation and conflict
resolution are common strategies for dealing with conflicts
among students in school, peer mediation is not recommended in cases of bullying because of the power differential between bullied and bullying students, and the potential for additional harm that such a meeting might cause
(Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention, n.d.). Moreover,
experts contend that any face-to-face meetings between
bullied and bullying students should be considered only in
carefully prescribed situations, such as when both parties
wish to participate, support persons are invited to be present, prior individual meetings have taken place, and those
overseeing and facilitating the intervention have specific
training in restorative practices (Molnar-Main, 2014). In
addition, recognizing the trauma that many bullied students
experience, referrals to supportive mental health services
within schools and communities may be necessary.
Finally, given differences in the nature and prevalence
of bullying versus other forms of peer aggression, and
recognizing differences in the harms that each may cause,
training and prevention efforts to address bullying must
necessarily highlight somewhat unique issues. As Cascardi
and colleagues (2014, p. 270) noted, school-based efforts to
address peer aggression and bullying certainly share some
overlapping features . . .[but] to be maximally effective,
bullying interventions must also target those features of
bullying that distinguish it from peer aggression and the
broader environment that may support tolerance or acceptance of bullying.
Bullying Within State Criminal Laws
Traditionally, bullying has not been viewed as a criminal
act and has either been ignored or treated as a disciplinary
matter in schools. Arguably, all states have criminal laws
MayJune 2015 American Psychologist

that may be applied to some bullying behaviors, for example, when bullying constitutes assault and battery or other
criminal acts such as extortion, robbery, stalking, or threatening. However, in recent years, there has been a shift
toward increasing criminalization of bullying (Cascardi et
al., 2014). Seven state bullying laws currently encourage
criminal sanctions for bullying by mandating procedures
for school personnel to report bullying that may violate
criminal law (U.S. Department of Education, 2011). Missouris state bullying law (Mo. Rev. Stat 167.117.1) directs schools to impose sanctions on school staff who do
not comply with reporting requirements.
Another move toward criminalization is the increasing
number of states that have modified existing criminal or
juvenile codes to explicitly address bullying behavior or that
have created new crimes to target bullying or harassment. For
example, North Carolina legislators passed a law that criminalizes cyberbullying (N.C.G.S.A. 14 458.1). Idaho created
a crime of harassment, intimidation, or bullying among students (I.C. 18 917A).
There are multiple concerns with the criminalization of
bullying. First, the concept of bullying may be too broad and
subjective for reasonable application in the criminal justice
system, especially because it encompasses behaviors engaged
in by a large proportion of the population. A national survey
found that 40% of all students reported that they were victims
of bullying in the past couple of months (Wang, Iannotti, Luk,
& Nansel, 2010), and a similar proportion admitted that they
engaged in bullying (J. Wang, personal communication, September 4, 2012). A second concern is that the criminalization
of school misbehavior has been identified as a practice that
leads to higher rates of school disengagement, academic failure and dropout, and ultimately, involvement in the juvenile
justice system (Fabelo et al., 2011; Gonsoulin, Zablocki, &
Leone, 2012; The Dignity in Schools Campaign, 2012). When
bullying is severe enough to constitute one of the traditional
criminal offenses, it can be handled under existing law without creation of a bullying offense, but efforts to expand
criminal sanctions to encompass other forms of bullying are
ill-advised.
Although the content of state antibullying laws has been
evaluated and contrasted, remarkably little research has been
conducted to study how these laws and policies are implemented and to what effect (Institutes of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014). Researchers can take advantage of the heterogeneity of these laws to examine whether
states with more comprehensive and less punitive approaches
achieve greater success. Qualitative studies in schools are also
needed to evaluate how policies are implemented, including
barriers and facilitators in implementation (Institutes of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014).

Recommendations
The General Accounting Office (2012) has emphasized the
need to identify gaps in legal protections for groups who are
most vulnerable to bullying. We agree with this recommendation, but caution that the strategy of using civil rights laws
to protect students from bullying is inherently limited because
MayJune 2015 American Psychologist

students can be bullied for many reasons that do not fall into
any of the conventional categories of civil rights protection. A
more inclusive, universal approach is needed that protects any
student who is bullied.
Despite the fact that nearly all states require the development of school policies on bullying, we know little about
their implementation or effectiveness (Institutes of Medicine
and National Research Council, 2014). School policies must
conform to legal requirements set forth in state antibullying
laws, but should also reflect best practices informed by scientific research. In light of available evidence, we recommend
that school policies on bullying include these core elements:
1. State laws should protect all students from peer
victimization, including harassment and bullying. The concept of bullying should be distinguished from peer aggression and harassment because of research evidence regarding its differential impact and the need for differentiated
prevention and intervention measures. Legislative definitions of bullying should encourage schools to use scientific-based measures and interventions that distinguish bullying from other forms of peer victimization.
2. Students and parents should be educated about
bullying and provided with multiple means of seeking help
for it. Given the reluctance of many children and youth to
report bullying that they experience or witness (Espelage,
Green, & Polanin, 2012; Luxenberg et al., 2014), it is
important that policies include provisions to increase the
ease of reporting, such as anonymous reporting procedures
(U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights,
2010).
3. There should be a prompt and thorough investigation of suspected or reported bullying. As noted by the
Office for Civil Rights, this should include immediate
intervention strategies for protecting the victim from additional bullying or retaliation . . . notification to parents of
the victim or reported victim of bullying and the alleged
perpetrator, and, if appropriate, notification to law enforcement officials (U.S. Department of Education, Office for
Civil Rights, 2010, p. 6).
4. Bullying should not be categorized as a criminal
behavior because it varies so widely in form and severity,
and in most cases, can be handled appropriately with
school disciplinary and counseling measures. However,
bullying behaviors that also meet criteria for illegal behavior, such as assault or extortion, should be dealt with as
deemed appropriate for the circumstances and severity of
the behavior.
5. When bullying behavior constitutes sexual harassment or a violation of civil rights in some other way, school
authorities should be responsive to their legal obligations
(U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights,
2010).
6. Schools should not use zero-tolerance policies that
assign harsh consequences for violations of a school rule,
regardless of the context or severity of behavior. Instead,
there should be graduated consequences for bullying that
are appropriate to the context and severity of the behavior
and characteristics of the student(s) (Kowalski et al., 2012;
341

Swearer, Limber, & Alley, 2009; U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2010).
7. School policies should direct school staff to assess
students who are bullied for possible mental health and
academic problems and provide support and referrals for
these students and their parents, as needed. Policies also
should direct staff to provided support and referrals for
students who engage in bullying (Kowalski et al., 2012;
U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights,
2010).
8. School policies should include provisions for training of all staff to prevent, identify, and respond appropriately to bullying. This training would include recognition
of the overlap between bullying and illegal behavior.
9. School policies should encourage the adoption of
evidence-based strategies to guide prevention and intervention efforts. School authorities should be leery of programs
or strategies that are based on emotional appeals with no
supporting evidence of effectiveness.
In conclusion, school policies should reflect best practices informed by scientific research, and so we recommend
greater reliance on evidence-based practices and rejection of
disciplinary practices that are known to be ineffective. Because bullying behavior is so widespread and so varied in
form and severity, reliance on criminal sanctions would be
ill-advised. A strategy that combines education, school-based
interventions, and policy reform leading to cultural change
would seem most appropriate. We urge policymakers and
legislators to affirm that public education is a right for all
students and to recognize that bullying is an impediment to
that right.
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